


Ancient Runes

by enigmaticblue



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in an alternate Ats S4/S5, where Wesley set off on his own. Hired to recover an ancient weapon, Wesley finds himself in an unexpected situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient Runes

Wesley followed the line of text with his fingers. He’d lost his place three times already, and this was a tricky translation. His client was paying for his time, and he had a reputation to build.

 

Unfortunately, he was not at all certain of his ability to perform his side of the contract.

 

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, shoving the book away. Wesley ran a hand over his jaw, feeling three days’ growth of stubble, and gave brief consideration to shaving. There was no one to see him, however, and he didn’t see the point.

 

He’d been hired to recover an athame for a well-known collector of ancient and magical artifacts; success would go a long way towards replenishing his rapidly dwindling bank account.

 

The problem was that every source he read, everything he’d seen, indicated that the secret to the knife’s location was in the painting. Wesley rose from the table and wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the pantry.

 

Popping the top from the bottle, Wesley took a long swig before heading back into his living room. He’d set the painting up across from the couch, and he’d already spent untold hours staring at it.

 

The woman stood, silhouetted against cobblestones and ancient buildings, the weapon he was seeking hung by her side from her right hand. She was wearing sandals and a white gown, secured by a cord around her waist.

 

If Wesley were being fanciful, he’d say that she looked sad, or possibly wistful. But he wasn’t being fanciful. He was attempting to use the painting to recover a lost artifact for a client who could make or break him.

 

Wesley finished off his beer and stretched out on the couch, still staring at the painting. He couldn’t help but think that if he looked hard enough or long enough, he would discover the secrets it purportedly held.

 

The next thing he knew, Wesley was being straddled by a pair of warm, lithe legs, a pair of hands on his chest holding him down. “You aren’t looking hard enough.”

 

He blinked fuzzily. “Huh?”

 

“You aren’t looking hard enough.” The woman’s fine features were set in grim lines. “You have to free me.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“You’re the closest anyone has ever been. Perform the ritual. Free me.”

 

Wesley’s eyes blinked open, and he rolled his head to look at the painting. Clearly, he’d been working too hard. That dream had been all too real.

 

Rolling off the couch, Wesley stumbled and fell when his feet got tangled up together, and he landed with his nose less than an inch from the canvas. “Bloody hell.”

 

It was as much an exhalation of surprise as an exclamation of annoyance at tripping over his own feet, for this close to the painting he could see the runes hidden within the picture. Keeping his nose an inch from the canvas, Wesley began examining every inch, finding more runes.

 

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, and dismissed the quiet sigh he heard as the imaginings of an overworked mind.

 

~~~~~

 

It took Wesley a full twelve hours to find all the runes in the painting, and another six to put them in their correct order. He recognized the cuneiform easily enough; ancient Sumerian was a little hard to mistake for anything else.

 

Wesley looked at the couch wistfully. Although he’d fallen asleep for a few hours, his client had given him a deadline, which he was in danger of not meeting.

 

Luckily, he spoke Sumerian as fluently as anyone could speak a dead language.

 

The ritual made absolutely no sense. Wesley stared at his notes, then tossed them aside in disgust. “You have got to be kidding me. This is worse than the bloody ritual for the Slayer’s quest.”

 

Staring at the painting in disgust, he rose from the floor and paced to the kitchen, then back to the living room. “The hell with it.”

 

The shower cleared his brain a bit, as did the hot coffee, at least enough to regain some objectivity. The fact of the matter was that he’d found the hidden message within the painting, he’d put it together, and he’d translated it. Granted, the ritual read more like a children’s game, but trying it wouldn’t hurt anything.

 

“Very well,” he grumbled, beginning to locate his supplies. There was nothing on the list that was terribly out of the ordinary, which made the spell even less likely to work. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide ancient runes within a painting, so it didn’t make sense that the ingredients were so common.

 

Unless—

 

Wesley looked down at the dried burba weed in his hand, suddenly remembering a lecture from his days at the Watchers’ Academy. One of his professors had given a lecture on the changes wrought in spell casting due to the proliferation of technology. “Not only may one utilize technology, such as computers, in one’s spell casting,” his professor had declared, “but technology has aided in other respects as well. Spell ingredients are more widely available and more easily stored for long periods of time.”

 

Strange, but Wesley hadn’t thought of that possibility, and he wasn’t sure that any of these ingredients would have been particularly rare when the painting was created. His client had suggested that it had been around since the early 19th century, but looking at it now…

 

He shook his head. In a moment, it wouldn’t matter, because this potion would either ruin the painting, in which case he would have to pay to have it restored, or it would allow him to locate the weapon and replenish his bank account.

 

Wesley performed the ritual while reciting the prescribed chant, which involved calling on the name of Ishtar, something he wasn’t keen about. Calling on gods and goddesses always involved a certain amount of risk; it was entirely possible that one of them would show up.

 

The potion foamed, and Wesley breathed a silent prayer that this worked as he tossed the potion onto the canvas.

 

There was a flash of light, and Wesley found himself flat on his back, bowled over by a rushing wind. He cursed, picking himself off the ground slowly. The painting was undamaged and unchanged, so he had that much going for him.

 

Blinking, Wesley spotted the athame on the floor. “Well. That’s interesting.”

 

For a moment, all he could think about was the weapon, and how someone might manage to get a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional space. It would take a very powerful spell caster to do something like that.

 

Wesley couldn’t help but feel that he was missing something, however. He had the weapon, but the woman—

 

Picking up the athame, Wesley tested the edge with his thumb, watching in fascination as a line of blood welled up. “It’s about damn time.”

 

Wesley blinked at the voice that came from behind him, and he turned slowly. The woman from the painting was standing there, looking exactly the same. She had her arms crossed over her chest, a sandaled foot tapping impatiently. “Excuse me?”

 

“I’ve been waiting to get out for _years_. You’re the first one who has even been close, and it took you a week.”

 

Wesley attempted to find his voice, which was a little more difficult than he thought it would be. She was pretty, but it was more than that. She had a presence about her that was larger than life that somehow managed to fill the room. “Who are you?” he finally managed.

 

“Ishtar,” she said simply, a knowing gleam in her eye. “You called on me.”

 

He gulped. “And the painting?”

 

She shrugged. “I was tricked, and the funny thing about being a goddess is that your strength wanes as you lose worshippers. No one remembers me anymore.” Taking two quick strides forward, Ishtar put her hands on Wesley’s shoulders, and he felt her strength and her heat.

 

Belatedly, he realized that Ishtar was the goddess of war and fertility. He backed up. “Perhaps this isn’t a good idea.”

 

“I haven’t touched anyone or anything in _ages_.”

 

Her lips met his, and Wesley could feel her ravenous hunger. She was, by far, the most skilled woman he’d ever kissed, and he felt himself responding even though he knew he probably ought to be running the other way.

 

“Put yourself in my hands,” she whispered in his ear. “I will make it worth your while.”

 

Wesley hesitated only for an instant, deciding that he didn’t have much choice. He had a feeling that his lifespan would be considerably shortened if he didn’t agree, and it had been far too long since he’d been touched in this way.

 

Far too long since he’d been _wanted_.

 

In that moment, he let go of all his reservations. Ishtar might end up killing him, but what a way to go. And if she didn’t? Well, he _had_ fulfilled his mission. Ishtar seemed intent on rewarding him for his pains.

 

And as Ishtar shoved him back onto the couch, straddling his waist, Wesley couldn’t help but lose himself in the sensations—strong hands gripping his shoulders, strong thighs clamping down on his waist. Soft breasts brushed against his chest as her lips and tongue warred with his.

 

Wesley recognized a good, hard fuck for what it was when he was in the middle of one; he was no stranger to sex where he was both used and user. After all, how many times had he been here with Lilah Morgan? And hadn’t he missed it on occasion?

 

Ishtar might have taken control, but he was intent on wresting some of it back, and he slipped his hands under her dress, quickly discovering that she wore nothing underneath.

 

It wasn’t long before he was making her gasp, making her come around his fingers with a hoarse cry that gave him a fierce pleasure.

 

When she sagged against him for a moment, panting in great, harsh breaths, Wesley held her until her trembling eased. It didn’t take nearly as long as he’d expected.

 

Her dark eyes were wide, filled with an exultation that gave him a moment’s pause. “What is your name, mortal?”

 

“Wesley.”

 

“Wesley.” She seemed to roll the syllables around in her mouth, as though tasting them. “A rather ordinary name, meaning from the west field.”

 

He didn’t ask her how she knew; she _was_ a goddess, or had been at one time. “Yes.”

 

“Perhaps I shall name you anew.” Her eyes seemed to glow, and she bent to cover his mouth with hers once again.

 

And this time, Wesley definitely was _not_ the one in control.

 

~~~~~

 

Wesley lay in a naked, satiated heap on the couch, his hand hanging off the side, watching Ishtar, who was similarly unclothed, as she paced over to the window. He knew what she saw as she looked out, and it wasn’t much. His apartment didn’t have a great view, but the rent was relatively inexpensive for Los Angeles, and he’d never made enough to warrant the hassle and expense of moving.

 

“There is so much here that I do not know about, so much that I haven’t experienced.”

 

“What are you going to do?” he asked, too tired to really care.

 

Ishtar turned from the window. “I do not know.” Her smile was rueful. “It seems there are few here who remember my name, and then, only as a myth from ancient days.”

 

Wesley felt obliged to apologize, but she shrugged it off. “There is a new world out there.” Ishtar eyed the athame that now rested on Wesley’s dining room table. “That was the object of your search, yes?”

 

“I have a customer willing to buy it.” He made no apologies for this fact.

 

“You will give me half of the sale price,” Ishtar decreed.

 

Wesley’s eyebrows went straight up. “Excuse me?”

 

“It is mine,” she reminded him, “but because you freed me from my prison, I will give you half.”

 

Ishtar’s magnanimous tone caused Wesley to snort. “If I hadn’t freed you, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I’ll give you a quarter.”

 

Her eyes narrowed, and Wesley wondered if she had the power to smite someone rumored to belong to gods and goddesses. A smile broke out over her face in the next moment, however, and she laughed. “It has been a long time since a mortal tried to bargain with me.” She gave him a considering look, and Wesley couldn’t help the fact that his eyes drifted from her face to the rest of her body. “A third.”

 

“Done.”

 

She strode towards him. “And how do you seal a bargain in your world?”

 

Wesley smiled. “We could start with a kiss.”

 

She smiled, and he could see that she did not believe him, but she obliged. Wesley still wasn’t certain what one did with a goddess, but he thought that for once, he would make it up as he went along.


End file.
